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Morphological Variation of the Newly Confirmed Population of the Javelin Sand Boa, Eryx Jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Serpentes, Erycidae) in Sicily, Italy

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Morphological Variation of the Newly Confirmed Population of the Javelin Sand Boa, Eryx Jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Serpentes, Erycidae) in Sicily, Italy Acta Herpetologica 14(2): 135-139, 2019 DOI: 10.13128/a_h-7752 Morphological variation of the newly confirmed population of the Javelin sand boa, Eryx jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Serpentes, Erycidae) in Sicily, Italy Francesco P. Faraone1,*, Salvatore Russotto2, Salvatore A. Barra3, Roberto Chiara3, Gabriele Giacalone4, Mario Lo Valvo3 1 Viale Regione Siciliana S.E., 532, 90129 Palermo, Italy 2 Contrada Grassura Mollaka Faia, s.n., 92027 Licata (AG), Italy 3 Dipartimento Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche, Chimiche e Farmaceutiche, University of Palermo, Via Archirafi, 18, 90123 Palermo, Italy 4 Cooperativa Silene, Via D’Ondes Reggio, 8/a, 90127 Palermo, Italy *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Submitted on: 2019, 13th May; revised on: 2019, 20th June; accepted on: 2019, 29th June Editor: Dario Ottonello Abstract. The presence of the Javelin sand boa in Sicily has recently been confirmed. Here the morphological char- acters and sexual dimorphism of the Sicilian population of Eryx jaculus are presented. Seven meristic and six metric characters in 96 specimens from Sicily were examined. The results show that tail length, snout-vent length, the dis- tance between nostrils and the number of ventral and subcaudal scales are different between sexes. The characters found in the Sicilian population of the Javelin sand boa resemble those of the African population (ssp. jaculus) rather than the Eurasian population (ssp. turcicus), but biomolecular studies are necessary to understand its taxonomic iden- tity. Keywords. Eryx jaculus, Serpentes, morphological variation, folidosis. The Javelin sand boa Eryx jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758), Recently, the presence of E. jaculus has been con- a member of the family Erycidae, is found in the south- firmed in a small area of southern Sicily, in Italy (Insacco ern Balkans, Middle East and North Africa (Sindaco et et al., 2015). Knowledge of the Javelin sand boa in Sicily al., 2013). Two morphologically defined subspecies are is currently limited to scant preliminary information on usually recognized for this species. The nominate sub- the population’s distribution, morphology, habitat and species is present in North Africa and the ssp. turcicus diet (Insacco et al., 2015; Faraone et al., 2017a, b). (Olivier, 1801) is found in the Balkans and the Mid- In this paper the first comprehensive report of the dle East (Tokar and Obst, 1993; Sindaco et al., 2013; morphological characters and sexual dimorphism in the Geniez, 2015). According to Tokar and Obst (1993), Sicilian population of E. jaculus is presented. the Transcaucasian ssp. familiaris Eichwald, 1831 Sampling was carried out within the currently known could be synonymous with E. j. turcicus. Morphologi- geographic range of the Javelin sand boa in South Central cal variations of E. jaculus have been reported both at Sicily, within an area between Palma di Montechiaro (prov- a global (Tokar, 1991) and a local scale (Cattaneo, 1984, ince of Agrigento) and Butera (province of Caltanissetta) 2005, 2010; Rhadi et al., 2015; Zarrintab et al., 2017; (see Insacco et al., 2015; Faraone et al., 2017b). A total of Eskandarzadeh et al., 2018). 55 adult (30 males; 25 females) and 41 juvenile (21 males; ISSN 1827-9635 (print) © Firenze University Press ISSN 1827-9643 (online) www.fupress.com/ah 136 Francesco P. Faraone et alii b 17 females; 3 undetermined) specimens were examined Z =Yi (SVL/ SVLi ) between August 2014 and September 2018. Among them, 47 specimens were collected during active searches at night, following Lleonart et al. (2000), where Z is the trans- 12 specimens were rescued from abandoned cisterns and formed value of the variable Y, which is the variable the tunnel greenhouse in which they were trapped, four affected by size, represented as the snout-vent length were found dead inside cisterns, one had been killed by (SVL), and b is the slope of the linear regression between domestic cats and 32 specimens were roadkilled. logY and logSVL. The data were checked for parametric Sex was determined by examining external sexual assumptions using Levene’s test and the Shapiro-Wilk features (spurs, tail shape) and, mainly in young snakes, test. For each variable, parametric (independent t-test) also by cloacal popping. The reliability of external fea- or non-parametric (Mann-Whitney U test) analysis was tures for sexual determination was also confirmed by conducted, with a level of significance at 0.05. Differ- cloacal probing in dead specimens. In absence of detailed ences between the sexes were checked by using the Prin- references, E. jaculus with a snout-vent length < 270 mm cipal Component Analysis (PCA), applied to the cor- (see Itescu et al., 2018; Eskandarzadeh et al., 2018) were relation matrix. Body weight (W) was not included in considered as juveniles. PCA, because its value can vary greatly depending on the Seven meristic characters were considered: the num- condition of each specimen (pregnancy, decay, freshly ber of scales between the eyes (BE), around the eye (RE), ingested prey, etc.). SVL and the characters with a P value posterior to the internasal (PIN), between the eye and the greater than 0.05 were also excluded. nasal (BEN), the rows of scales between the eye and the Color morph was classified according to the three supralabial area (BES), the ventrals (VS) and the subcaudals types reported by Tokar (1991) and Tokar and Obst (ScdS). Six metric characters were also recorded: snout-vent (1993). The ‘discrete’ morph is characterized by a reduced length (SVL), tail length (TL), the distance between the dorsal pattern, with narrow transverse dorsal bars and eyes (DBE), the distance between the posterior edge of the small scattered spots on the sides. In the ‘standard’ eye and the tip of the snout (DES), the distance between morph, the dorsal pattern is more extensive than in the the nostrils (DBN) as well as body weight (W). For bilat- ‘discrete’ morph and the dorsal blotches are spaced by eral characters, only the right side was recorded. Biometric light areas of similar thickness and are not in contact characters were measured using a digital caliper accurate to with each other. The ‘negative’ morph is characterized by 0.01 mm, except for SVL, which was measured with a mm a greater development of the dark pattern, while the light ruler, and body weight (W), which was measured only on parts are reduced to narrow suboval blotches on the back. live individuals using a digital scale with 1 g precision. The descriptive statistic and a comparison between In order to remove the information related to size, sexes were made for adults (Table 1). Significant inter- each metric variable was transformed using the formula: sexual differences in five characters were found: the num- Table 1. Descriptive statistics and univariate comparisons between sexes of the Sicilian population of Eryx jaculus. The first five characters are in millimetres, the sixth in grams and the others are meristic. Significant differences (P<0.05) are shown in bold. *= transformed values. Males Females T U P Mean ± SD Range n Mean ± SD Range n SVL 342.1 ± 42.4 270.0 - 420.0 26 400.5 ± 86.1 270.0 - 580.0 23 3.2 - 0.004 *TL 40.7 ± 6.0 26.9 - 53.9 26 31.4 ± 6.2 20.7 - 45.9 23 7.9 - 0.000 *DES 7.1 ± 0.7 5.8 - 8.7 26 7.6 ± 1.2 5.9 - 10.5 21 1.8 - 0.086 *DBN 4.0 ± 0.4 3.3 - 4.7 26 4.2 ± 0.6 3.3 - 5.6 21 2.4 - 0.019 *DBE 7.0 ± 0.7 6.1 - 8.3 26 7.5 ± 1.1 5.5 - 10.0 21 - 165.0 0.194 W 36.9 ± 19.5 18 - 95 14 64.2 ± 49.6 15 – 204 16 - 76.0 0.135 VS 175.9 ± 2.8 170 - 182 26 181.9 ± 3.9 176 - 190 21 6.1 - 0.000 ScdS 25.2 ± 1.9 22 - 29 29 19.7 ± 1.4 17 - 22 23 11.8 - 0.000 PIN 2.6 ± 0.5 2 - 3 30 2.6 ± 0.5 2 - 3 24 - 357.0 0.958 BE 6.8 ± 0.6 6 - 8 30 6.8 ± 0.4 6 - 7 24 - 358.0 0.972 RE 9.4 ± 0.8 8 - 11 29 9.0 ± 0.7 8 - 10 22 - 238.5 0.126 BEN 3.0 ± 0 3 - 3 30 3.0 ± 0 3 - 3 24 - - - BES 1.0 ± 0.2 1 - 2 30 1.0 ± 0 1 - 1 24 - 348.0 0.835 Morphological variation of Eryx jaculus in Sicily 137 Fig. 1. Scatterplot of scores with the equiprobability ellipses at 95% projected on the first two principal components between sexes of Fig. 2. Examples of color and pattern variation in the Sicilian popu- the Sicilian population of Eryx jaculus. lation of Eryx jaculus. (A) Adult, male (B) Adult, female (C) Juve- nile, male (D) Ventral variation in three adult females. ber of ventral scales and snout-vent length have higher the ‘negative’ phenotype, but some small parts of their values in females and the number of subcaudal scales, back looked like the ‘standard’ morph, similar to what the distance between the nostrils and the tail length have was observed in some E. jaculus by Tokar and Obst higher values in males. The result of the Principal Com- (1993) and Werner (2016). Young individuals were gener- ponents Analysis (PCA) shows that 85.1% of the vari- ally lighter than adults, with a lower contrast in the dark ance is explained by the first two components (PC1 = pattern. No difference in dorsal color pattern was noticed 58.1%, PC2 = 27.0%). The scatterplot of scores with the between sexes.
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